Until July...

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It’s a big day here at The Jerx. First, my letter to Miss Manners was finally published.

And second, as I mentioned previously, I will be taking next month to do the writing for the next book, so there will be no posts during that time. So this is the final post until Monday, July 6th.

Sort of. I will stop in daily during the month of June for a brief check-in. Just a sentence or two most days. So if you need to hear from Daddy to make sure everything is okay, I’ll be here for you.

Otherwise, there will be a new issue of Keepers for supporters on June 7th, and regular posting will resume here on July 6th.

Oliver Meech writes:

Enjoyed your Onyx eyes suggestion. For a less plausible alternative/follow-up, you could mention how there's some truth to the Pinocchio-nose thing, as lying can make people feel guilty or embarrassed, which increases blood flow to the face (similar to blushing), including the nose, which becomes very fractionally larger. Then show their face photo with a ridiculously long Pinocchio nose. Very silly, but could be fun for the right crowd.

It’s a good idea, but I think I’d go the opposite way with it. I’d want it to be just noticeable. The question is, can the AI do it in a manner that’s noticeable but subtle? The long nose is funnier, but probably less interesting. And then the trick is clearly “how did he modify the picture on my phone?” As opposed to riding the edge of believability.

Benjamin from ThoughtCast Magic is considering a new platform for connecting people working on their magic to professionals who might be able to help.

To gauge interest, he’s asking if people will fill out this form. It’s quick. Even if you’re not interested, that’s probably helpful for him to hear.

Nathan W. writes:

About a month or so ago, I started using [the Pseudo Chatbot] to do the “trick that fooled Einstein” with cards. It’s been playing really well and getting great reactions. Makes the language feel more natural coming from an unnatural AI chatbot. 

Smart. That contextualizes the weird form of the prediction very nicely.

I might have it set to go with “candies” instead of cards—so it would be a non-card effect I could go into anytime there’s a bowl of candy, or by grabbing a bag of M&Ms or something when I’m out with someone.

In Love Letters #39, I recommended an app for a voodoo doll/PK touches style trick. I think a better option for that same trick is MultiDraw, which is a way to easily access any drawn prediction on your phone—with up to 100 possible outcomes per effect. It’s simple to operate and the input looks very innocent.

For a smaller number of outs, I will still use Draw Cycle, because I like that you don't have to touch the phone. But that can get unwieldy when you get beyond 10 or so possibilities.

After book-writing month is through, I'll explore this app more fully and let you know if I come up with any particularly interesting uses for it. But Antonio, the app's creator, has always been on a similar wavelength to myself, so if you like my ideas generally, he'll probably have some ideas that appeal to you with the app as well.

In an email, Jonathan S reminded me of a David Blaine’s special where he’s asked? “Can you look into my mind?” and David replies, “It’s different than you think.”

Later someone asks, “Is it magic?’ and he responds, “It’s not what you think it is.”

These are probably the most succinct “kind of but, not really” statements you can give as they naturally have both elements baked into just a few words.

For you Oz haters, Salim K. draws my attention to the backlash against him currently happening in sports media.

Pablo Torre
Pat McAfee
NFL on NBC

This could have gone no other way for Oz.

“Here I have a perfectly normal box of three bags of Skittles.”

The trick is fine, but for the love of God, use it to produce something that might actually come in a box like that.

Here’s a good idea and a question from Tomas Blomberg…

On my walk just now I saw this, and thought "What the hell kinda game is this?!"

And then it struck me: I can draw any strange looking game like this and just happen to come across it during a walk with someone and say "That brings back memories." Of course they'll ask about it. "We used to play it all the time. Well, at least until no one ever wanted to play it with me again. Let's see if I remember the rules, and I'll show you why."

Something like that. Surely there are procedural magic tricks that would fit that format.

But which ones, that don't need more props than the crayon playing field and perhaps rocks or branches or whatever you can find nearby?

Anyone have any thoughts?

Okay friends. That’s all for now. See you back here for brief check-ins in June and back to full-time posting in July. Wish me luck.


When Onyx Eyes Are Lying

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This is a use for Marc Kerstein's newest app, Onyx. I haven't had a chance to work with the app yet, so this is just a theoretical use at the moment. Although I intend to play around with it later this summer once the next book is complete.

Onyx allows you to manipulate photos taken on the spectator's phone.

For better or worse, we have zoomed past the point where a photo on your own phone will be good for much, magic-wise. AI manipulation is too obvious an answer. You really need something on the spectator's phone, or something printed. (Onyx also has a print feature that I can see being great for The Look of Love.)

My idea is a perhaps too subtle use for the app, as a magical Rep for any “lie detecting” plot.

You start by asking your friend to tell you some true statements, then some lies, then go back and forth. “People think they’re good at lying, but most people have one thing they can’t hide. I want to see if you have one.”

After a bit, you say, "I think I've got it."

Now you ask them to hide a coin in one of their hands or tell you details about a card they selected. (Any trick you have that you can frame as "lie detecting.") They can lie or tell the truth and you're able to tell them which they're doing.

You repeat this a couple of times.

"Want to know how?" you ask.

You borrow their phone and take their picture twice—once after they tell you a true statement, once after a lie. Then you show them the pictures.

"See? Your pupils dilate like crazy when you lie. No one's ever told you this?"

I like the idea of suggesting to someone they have a somewhat obvious tell when they lie—and actually "proving" it.

(Originally I thought it would be interesting if you could have their pupils compress slightly. But the AI couldn't do that subtly. They looked like an animal's eyes. Which is actually kind of an interestingly crazy premise: "When you lie, your pupils squeeze in. Almost like a cat's.")

The nice part of this routine is how the first part supports the second part. Even if they question the photo, they will get pulled back to the first part of the effect and think, "Well he was able to tell when I was lying. So maybe I do have a tell."

If they should call you out on it later—e.g., "I asked my sister to see if my pupils got bigger when I lied. She says they don't."

Then you just say, "Oh, that's because it was a subconscious tell. Once you know about it, they go away. But you likely have a different tell now. Here, put this coin in either hand."

Pretend you find their new tell, but this time don't tell them what it is. "I'm going to keep that info to myself. But I'd be really careful about lying around me."

Copperfield’s Snow Job

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David Copperfield has said some unbelievable things in his life:

—I'm going to walk through the Great Wall of China.

—I can fly.

—Any suggestion I was his friend is totally false and a mischaracterization made by the media. We were at most, acquaintances who met on a handful of occasions. I was completely unaware of his horrific crimes.

But I think the most unbelievable thing he ever said was in the introduction to his snow effect…

"I never saw snow for myself when I was a kid. I grew up in New Jersey, but every winter my parents and I drove to Florida to visit my aunt. So I never got a chance to experience winter or snow for myself."

I'm not sure what he's suggesting here. I mean, I understand that for the dramatic arc of the story it's important that he's never seen snow. But his version of events only makes sense if winter in NJ is like cherry blossom season in Japan—where you could "miss" it by going on vacation each year.

But that's not how winter works in NJ. So did he and his parents go to Florida for four and a half months? That seems like a bit more than a "visit." What about his schooling? How did his aunt feel about all of this?

It just doesn't work very well as an intro to the effect.

Copperfield has assured us he's not slinking off into retirement, but instead has much more to come in his performing career.

Should he decide to bring back the snow illusion, I thought I'd come up with some alternative—and much more believable—stories for why he'd never seen snow.

"I never saw snow for myself when I was a kid. My dad was a violent drunk and turned increasingly angry when the weather got cold. So every November my mom took me to Florida where we stayed with her sister until spring."

"I never saw snow for myself when I was a kid. Did you ever see the movie Room with Jacob Tremblay? Yeah, I grew up in one of those situations."

"I never saw snow for myself when I was a kid. My parents were part of a sun-worshipping sex cult. Cold weather was considered spiritually contaminating by the group's elders, so every winter the entire congregation migrated south. We spent November through March in Florida. I have complicated feelings about my upbringing, but I never saw snow."

Or… try wrapping your head around this idea…

Use the Out-to-Lunch principle. Have your spectator sign a business card verifying the statement on it is true—the statement being It regularly snows in New Jersey. You pull the card from the stack and say, "You've confirmed that's true?" They agree. "Good. Because I'm about to change the entire world to one where it isn't. Abracadabra… we now live in a world where what's written on that card is false, and your memory of the old world has been completely erased."

"You signed this card. Said the statement was 100% true. Correct?" They agree. You show them the card—which, via the OTL principle, now reads It never snows in New Jersey. "True statement?" They admit it's not. "Ah-ha! It was when you signed it. Back when the world was different. Before I rewrote history, reality, and everything you thought you knew."

Applause. Transition.

"Now, because I grew up in the 'before world,' I never got to see snow as a kid. Because it didn't snow in New Jersey. As you verified when you signed that card."

Simple!

Or, just repurpose that introduction for another Copperfield classic.

"Because I grew up in New Jersey, I never got to see a tornado of fire as a child…."

Kind of, but not really/Not really, but kind of

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Is this just a magic trick?

Are you psychic?

Are you a medium?

Do you have ESP?

Do you have special powers?

Is this hypnosis?

Is this NLP?

Do you have a photographic memory?

Is this a science thing?

Is this the devil?

In yesterday's mailbag I mentioned I would share how I answer any question where someone is trying to categorize me or what I'm doing.

My approach is to just never commit to any categorization. There's nothing to be gained by locking yourself into a label and their interpretation of what that label means.

Instead, I use the technique in the title of this post.

I don't use these exact words, but the skeleton of the response is:

A soft-agreement—"Kind of"

followed by a gentle distancing—"But not really."

Or vice versa. The statement is modular. And I can lead with the agreement or the distancing depending on how much I want them to associate me with the label they're offering.

"Is this a magic trick?" I'm fine with that label, but I don't want their pre-existing feelings about magic defining what they're about to see. So I start with the agreement and end with the denial. "Kind of. But not really."

"Are you a medium?" I don't want them thinking I'm claiming that—but I don't want to completely dismiss it if it's a subject they're genuinely drawn to. "No, not really. But kind of."

Essentially this is kind of equivoque. It's a statement that has a base-level meaning: “It’s not really that thing. But it’s kind of like that thing.” But it allows them to impute a meaning on it that goes beyond that. If they like you, they will interpret the statement in the way that they prefer.

"What is this, like a magic trick or something?"

"Kind of, but not really."

If they like magic: Oh, it's like magic? Great. I like magic.

If they don't like magic: Good. It's not really magic. Maybe it's something more interesting.

"Are you psychic?"

"No, not really. But kind of."

If they're intrigued by psychics: Oh, interesting. This is kind of like a psychic thing.

If a psychic stole their life savings: Oh good. He's not a psychic. It's just some similar thing.

Here are some examples of "kind of, but not really" statements.

  • You're in the right neighborhood, but not exactly.

  • It overlaps with that a little, but it's not the same thing.

  • In a way, but not like you're imagining.

  • It has that feeling, but it's something different.

  • That's one way to look at it, but I wouldn't use that term.

  • Sort of. But it's a weird version of that.

  • You could say that, but only in the loosest sense.

By staying in the "kind of, but not really" zone, you sidestep all the baggage that comes attached to whatever label they've offered. More than that, you generate something better than any straight answer could: the sense that what you do is somewhat beyond categorization. If you’re trying to create wonder, intrigue, and mystery with what you do, that’s a good place to start.

Mailbag #173

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I prefer to remain anonymous because what I’m about to ask may sound like crocodile tears.

I’m a full-time professional mentalist, and I’ve become fairly well known in my area through immersive ticketed shows that combine magic and mentalism. The audience becomes part of the experience instead of just watching tricks happen to them. I’m genuinely proud of the work I’ve built.

But because of that reputation, I run into a strange problem whenever I perform in more casual environments. For example, a new speakeasy hired me to do walk-around a few weeks before my ticketed show there. People brought friends, and the friends were immediately extra skeptical.

They say things like, “I don’t believe you.”

And I have to explain, “I’m not asking you to believe a single word I say.”

At that point, I usually just want to do a simple card trick because they clearly are not the right people for mentalism. But of course that only makes them double down harder. They start demanding that I tell them who they’re thinking of or reveal something personal about them.

I know this is technically a professional issue, but it’s started bleeding into my personal life too.

I’ve literally had people approach me at coffee shops while I’m off the clock, introduce themselves as fans, and then their friend immediately says, “Do something right now.”

Sometimes I’m simply not up for it. Also, unlike a lot of magicians, I’m not a total slut for attention who instantly asks “how high?” every time someone says “jump, performing monkey.”

One person even told me, “Well, I won’t buy a ticket unless I know you can really do it.”

Again, I know this is an absurdly niche problem, but I’m trying to understand how to integrate it into my work as an artist.

A lot of what you write about regarding carefree attitude and lowering stakes works beautifully in magic. But people seem to treat mentalism differently. They either desperately want to believe or aggressively need to disprove you.

At a recent gig, one woman said, “Oh, I’ve heard about you. Are you like a medium?”

I said, “No.”

Then I did a few mentalism effects, and she said, “Oh, so it’s more like magic.”

Then the very next group said, “But this ISN’T like magic, right?”

Am I just trapped in an endless loop of spectators who are too far on either side of the belief/disbelief spectrum?

I’m still trying to figure out how to guide people into that happy middle ground. So far, the only place it reliably happens is in my ticketed shows where people consciously opt into the experience. Even if they’re skeptical or got dragged there by someone else, they’re at least committed to sitting through the full arc of the show.

By the end, I can basically tell them, “It’s a show. I’m not trying to convince you of anything.”

And weirdly, that tends to work, but it’s happening more so I’d prefer to keep it down

Anyway, I was just curious what your thoughts are on all of this.—XX

My first piece of advice to all professional magicians is this: quit. Magic is so much more fun when it's just something you do for fun.

Nobody loves that advice. So my next piece of advice is this: create some delineation between what you do onstage and offstage. Even if you're just sort of making it up.

Instead of seeing what you do offstage as a "taste" of what they're going to see onstage, frame it as a "parallel interest" of yours. Then the feeling is, if they like you and like what they saw, then they should definitely check out your primary interest—your formal show.

It's like if you owned a cupcake shop. You spend all day baking cupcakes for a living. You don't have to bake cupcakes for everyone when you're not working. If you're doing some "promotional" baking or making something casually for some friends, you can make banana bread. "Oh, you like this? Thank you. This is just something I like dabbling in. If you want to see me at my best, come visit my cupcake shop." That way you get to do something you enjoy (baking, generally) but not everything is a reflection on your “real work” (making cupcakes).

The good news is, you're not trying to convince anyone you're a “real” mentalist so you don't have to be consistent with doing the same things in your show as you do outside of that. Onstage, you're a mentalist. But offstage, you don't have to be.

If I were you, my attitude would be that a professional performing environment is where I do "my thing" because that’s what they were designed for. Offstage, in casual situations, or strolling situations—I'm doing something different.

My story would be that learning the techniques of mentalism leads you down all sorts of crazy roads and introduces you to many unique individuals with unusual interests and skills, and these are some of the other cool things I learned in my travels.

"I can't really show you what I do in my show in this environment. But I can show you some other fun things I picked up along the way."

You're disassociating the two, but they're still tied together with a backstory. So they're connected, but not in any real way that lets them make judgments or pronouncements about one based on the other.

"You didn't like the banana bread? That's okay. You should check out my cupcake store, that's my real passion."

"You liked the banana bread? That's kind of you to say. You should check out my cupcake store, that's my real passion."

To put it simply: You're probably not ever going to get people in the same headspace when performing casually for a couple of minutes as you will when having them sit through a full show. So don't try. The show works because of everything that builds toward it: the arc, the investment, the accumulated strangeness. None of that carries over to a two-minute encounter at a bar. A casual performance isn't a mini-show. It's a different thing entirely. Just disconnect the two things for your own sanity.

That gives you two characters to play. The Mentalist—that's who shows up on stage. And The Guy Who Picked Up Fascinating Things On His Way To Becoming The Mentalist—that's who shows up everywhere else.

This allows you total freedom with what you perform offstage. You can do sponge balls or silhouette cutting or some second deal routine you learned from a degenerate gambler in 2009. Anything at all. If you still want to do mentalism, then make up a distinction. "These are some rough ideas I'm playing with. It's a different style, more experimental, I'm still getting a feel for it. If you want to see what I actually do, come to the show next week. But this should be fun in the meantime."

This also elevates the show. It’s something special that people have to come and see to experience it. It’s not something you can dole out a “sample” of wherever you are.

People brought friends, and the friends were immediately extra skeptical. They say things like, "I don't believe you."

[With a sort of confused smile.] "Oh, of course. You're not supposed to."

One person even told me, "Well, I won't buy a ticket unless I know you can really do it."

"Oh, okay."

"Oh, I've heard about you. Are you like a medium?" "Oh, so it's more like magic." "But this ISN'T like magic, right?"

I'll answer this tomorrow as it’s a slightly bigger issue (people’s need to resolve what you are) I have a more universal technique anyone can use when someone tries to categorize you or what you’re doing.

How goes your attempt at becoming less reliant on phone magic?—TR

Good and bad. Good in that I'm performing less phone magic for people generally. Bad in that much of the most exciting magic coming out these days is phone-based.

It also conflicts with another approach I've been working on—the Zero Carry idea—since most phone tricks require nothing but the phone, which I always have anyway. So those two things are pulling against each other.

The net result is performing less with the phone, but not phasing it out entirely.

One thing I've realized since consciously trying to avoid using the phone so much is that a phone lessens reactions by about 20%. So a trick that is a 9/10 impossibility with a phone gets a similar reaction to a trick that is a 7/10 impossibility that doesn't use technology. For that reason, when I do a phone trick these days I try to make it something significant so it can absorb that reaction hit.

I saw this on Facebook today and was wondering what the “third wave” equivoque approach to this would be?—FT

First, please don't make me go to Facebook anymore. All the responses on that post are either bad or the most elementary-level thinking on Equivoque. "Tell them to point to two." Is this what happens on magic Facebook pages? People giving the most obvious answers to questions? That’s all I ever see. Oh, and there's some guy in a mask that fits his head the way a PLU sticker fits an apple, doing things that are ostensibly tricks. Those are the two categories of video I see there.

To answer your question, no, there is no "Third Wave Equivoque" for this because we don't have enough information. The Third Wave style is about using real language that sounds definitive. Not "point to"—which is meaningless language that has to be given meaning after the fact (which is very clear to non-magicians as well).

Third Wave Equivoque isn't generic, it's written with a purpose in mind. What is going to happen to the chosen candy? We need to know what the trick is to know the language to use. We don't know that here. He doesn't give us any context. (Well, he does, but he just says: For context I want to force one of these 3 candies. Uhm, yeah, we got that part, goofball.)

The closest I can give you without knowing the trick is the phrase "take away."

"Take away two of the candies."

Depending on what they do, we can now put the focus on the "take" part of the phrase: "So you chose the red and the green."

Or we can put the focus on the "away" part of the phrase. "So that leaves us with the orange."

If needed, I would then likely use Michael Murray's Tombola Force for the final "choice." Although the language used there would again depend on what the actual trick is.

Dustings #146

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I feel bad for Oz Pearlman. He's been successful positioning himself as some kind of grand master of human psychology. He tells us he spent three decades "reverse engineering the human mind.” So when he lands a TED Talk, naturally people are expecting some mind-bending insight into how the brain works, how to read people, something they couldn’t find anywhere else.. But because he doesn't actually have skills like that, he has to deliver something considerably more humble: how to remember people's names. And of course he builds it up, implying he's sitting on some revolutionary framework. But then the curtain drops and his technique is to repeat the name and use the name.

Gee, thanks Svengali! I never would have thought of that.

I, of course, am legitimately a towering figure in the study of human behavior and psychology, so I’ll once again share my own method for remembering people’s names. One that isn’t just a lightly paraphrased regurgitation of Harry Lorayne that you’d find in every airport business book or LinkedIn essay on the subject.

When I meet someone and they tell me their name, I immediately imagine them 69'ing someone I know with the same name. It can be someone I know personally, someone famous, or a fictional character. So if Sarah introduces herself to me, I just imagine her engaged in simultaneous oral with singer Sarah McLachlan—someone I can easily picture. If I want to be extra sure, I'll add another detail to the background that I associate with the name. For Sarah McLachlan, that might be a few abused and homeless dogs who are also 69'ing. That image won't leave your mind.

In the last Dustings post, I introduced a contest based on the new Jerx gang sign I took from an Instagram post on a shitty pen vanish.

Rick Merrill writes:

Here’s my submission for the Jerx gang sign.  It’s from 2006 during, what turned out to be, my Grand Prix winning close up act.  I flash the sign around the 3:20 mark.  Some of us actually could’ve stolen the old broad’s expensive pen at that party.  The poor knucklehead in the video didn’t understand the part of the vanish that made it the most magical looking.

P.S.  God, I was fat…

First, you’re more thicc than fat.

Second, doing this onstage at FISM does meet the “interesting or unusual situation” clause as indicated in the original contest announcement. Sadly I must disqualify the entry for the following reasons:

1. Your entry can’t pre-date the contest. And it certainly can’t predate the site.

2. You need to flash the weird OK sign at least three times, as that is what amplifies the stupidity of this thing.

3. You can’t be doing the sign during the course of actually vanishing a pen. It must be done simply as a gang sign.

Your intention has to be to demonstrate gang affiliation. That’s how it works with these signs. If I happen to do the sign for the crips while demonstrating to someone how girthy my dong is, that doesn’t make me a member of that gang.

Scripting in Carefree Magic

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This is my approach to scripting under the Carefree Magic philosophy.

The last thing you want is for the word "script" to occur to the people you perform for—not in casual settings. If you’re Derren Brown, it’s fine if someone leaves thinking, “That show was brilliantly scripted.” Or if you’re David Copperfield, it’s reasonable someone might think, “I wonder who writes the shitty jokes in his script.” We expect artists like that to be working from a script.

But if you're sitting on the couch showing a friend something interesting and their takeaway is, Wow… what a clever script, something has gone wrong. You're no longer coming off like a normal person sharing an interesting moment. You're coming off like a performer. And that's a weird energy to introduce into a casual interaction.

On the other hand, you don't want to have no idea what you're going to say and just wing it. Social magic should feel unscripted and natural—but you still need some internal reason for why you wanted to show them this thing. So you'll have some sense of what to say along the way.

For Carefree Magic, scripting should come down to knowing:

  1. What you want to demonstrate.

  2. How you feel about it.

  3. What the backstory is behind how you came to know about it.

For example:

  1. I want to demonstrate a technique for briefly seeing through the eyes of another person.

  2. I'm a little skeptical, because I haven't been having much success with it.

  3. I learned it at a magic convention. The convention was mostly standard magic tricks and stuff. But there was one guy who did a small late-night workshop on something called "borrowed vision." He taught these techniques to a handful of us. When he demonstrated it, it seemed real—but now I'm wondering if it was just a trick.

This is enough to give you talking points to hit throughout the trick without having to script everything along the way.

You can write these things out for every trick in your repertoire if you want. Or you can do what I usually do and work them out mentally a few moments before you perform.

Either way, the point is that this is an extremely low-effort process—which is what makes it the “carefree” scripting option—that still gives you the backbone of a real presentation to build on in the moment.

It’s more than just paying lip service to a subject and tacking it on at the start. "Here's an example of fate vs. free will" (with no further reference back to those subjects). Or, "Here's a move gambling cheats use."

Instead, there's enough here for real depth in the experience you're creating for them.

  1. What is it? A move gambling cheats use that you're trying to perfect.

  2. How you feel about it? Excited, because you have a regular poker game and if you can perfect the skill of turning cards over within the pack, then—when you're dealing—you'll be able to see what cards are coming up and whether they'll help your hand.

  3. Where you learned it? Your great-uncle was a professional gambler and you found details of the move in a notebook he kept.

You don't have to say these things piece-by-piece for each trick you perform. But having this information in the back of your head lets you present whatever you're showing in a way that feels real—because these are the kinds of details you'd actually have if you were genuinely sharing something interesting.

Knowing these things won’t make you sound scripted. They’ll make you sound like a person who has a real relationship to the thing you’re showing them.